Hung - Season 3

When I heard that Bored to Death and Hung got canceled at the same time, I felt slight disappointment at the former and a bit of remorse at the latter. Hung's second season didn't do much for me, but the show has some likable elements and I thought I ought to at least see how they ended things. I blasted through the third season in one sitting using HBO's on demand service, and I found it to be mostly enjoyable. It doesn't give itself a proper conclusion and there are a few annoying elements, but it was possibly the best year the show had. There was a definite arc, the story had definite stakes, and there was some really strong character work. Plus Tanya seemed less awful this time. Not a bad note to go out on.

After having a falling out with Lenore last year (right?), Ray and Tanya need a way to get their business going again. They manage to finagle a loan and start up a wellness center for women as a front for their prostitution business; Tanya runs classes and talks to the women, then setting them up for Ray's "private consultations". He then proceeds to have sex with lots of women for money. What a good show to be talking about on Christmas. Anyway, Lenore is still angry and has a number of attempts to get her cut of the profits, including finding a second guy to make money with and trying to stick Ray's ex-wife in the middle of things. There's a nice back and forth, and it actually felt like people had a purpose this season and had things to fight for. Also we get a lot more of Lennie James' pimp character, and any scene he's in is a good one. Anne Heche doesn't have much to do besides be put upon, and her kids are even less of a factor than before. But they don't really get in the way, and the show is pretty strong based on its decent humor, the competent plotting, and Thomas Jane's once again totally affable performance. There's no proper ending this time, but they did a good job with fixing the show in the time they had.

The Other Guys

Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay continue their fruitful partnership of serviceable and occasionally brilliant but often flawed comedies with The Other Guys, a send up of buddy cop movies (which are themselves already pretty silly in nature) with an odd sense of humor and an even odder political stance against the seedy nature of big money in America. The bad guys in the story are basically using fraud to cover up losses, and the entire end credits of the film feature animated information about things like how Ponzi schemes work and the average salaries of CEOs in comparison to regular workers over time. This is probably the wrong movie to throw an issue like this into, though I appreciate the effort.

The movie starts out bombastically with a ridiculous car chase through New York City as Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson attempt to stop some drug dealers. It's one of the most wonderfully absurd action scenes played for laughs I've seen, and it's a great start for the movie. I would watch a whole film about Johnson and Jackson as these superhero cop characters. But it's not about them, it's about the other guys, played by Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. Ferrell plays a number cruncher and paperwork doer who'd rather stay in the office than chase bad guys, and Wahlberg was a promising young cop who had his career derailed after he shot a famous athlete. They're mostly the subject of ridicule, but they see an opportunity to make a big case after they arrest a businessman played by Steve Coogan and he is then kidnapped by armed thugs. People with money don't like Ferrell and Wahlberg sniffing around their affairs, and they are harassed at every turn by their fellow cops and other things working against them.

The structure of the story could have pretty much just been a regular buddy cop movie, but it's the specific weirdness of the situations and dialogue that make it a Will Ferrell comedy. The film just comes up with a ton of running gags and lets them ride, and some of them end up being pretty funny. Some of the better ones include all the horrible things that happen to the interior of Ferrell's Prius, his dark past, and Wahlberg's habit of studying fine arts so he can make fun of people who enjoy them. Some bits are weirder; Ferrell's innate attraction to beautiful women is cute but offset by what's basically an emotionally abusive marriage that's played for laughs.

Ferrell's mix of low key and very loud methods of being funny are in full effect and enjoyable as usual, and while I would say Wahlberg definitely isn't a natural comic actor (or a natural actor at all, really), his hit rate on one liners is generally pretty decent. Michael Keaton is great as the police captain, and his role is another I'd love to see revisited in a Rock/Jackson prequel. The movie is overstuffed to the point of bursting with recognizable comedic talent, and most of the cameos usually have at least one decent joke attached instead of just being their for their own sake. Ice-T's narration in particular is memorable. Not every joke is a success and I would have preferred a less self-serious plot, but it was a pretty fun movie.

Hung - Season 2

I didn't really genuinely start liking this show until the second half of the first season, and it doesn't do very much to keep that momentum this time around. Despite not knowing anyone who really enjoys the show or even watches it, it's getting a third season. I'll keep watching because the show still has its good bits and I've grown quite fond of Thomas Jane's depiction of a down-on-his-luck Detroit dad. There's less focus on his business as a prostitute this season, and more general worrying about the economy, dealing with the likely loss of his job, and trying to rekindle something with his ex-wife.

Even when he is seeing a client, there isn't much going on with it. Jemma last year was a unique and interesting situation for him to deal with, and the only one who isn't a one-note joke this season is Francis, who ends up sequestered in her own subplot with his friend Mike. It's really shifted away from the show it was supposedly supposed to be, as the creators try to say something about everything and it just becomes less tightly plotted than it should be, which is an issue when you only have five hours to do everything you want to in the season.

I was disappointed with Tanya this season, too. She's very likable when she's put upon, but they tried to make her act much more aggressively this time, and just didn't do the work to make her still sympathetic in that situation. Lenore's the one who's supposed to be a horrible woman, and Tanya just doesn't wear it well. His kids are just sort of there again, and Ronnie just ends up as an unlikable shit when he really should be a pitiable character. I don't know. It's stuck between being a comedy and a drama, and does neither particularly well. Still, it's watchable enough that I don't want to give up on it. I guess that's something?

Hung - Season 1

So the only reason I watched Hung was because the second season was going to air between two things I already intended to see, and I thought I might as well fill that gap. The first season ended up being a decent enough if unexceptional comedy, sort of like Entourage in that it never makes me laugh that much but it just has that element of being totally watchable enough that I don't feel like changing the channel. Unlike Entourage though, the lack of laughter is less because only one character is actually funny and more because it tries to be serious just as much as it doesn't. It's the story of a middle aged man trying to put his life back together, and it's more concerned with being true to that than shoving in a ton of jokes. In a way I respect that, even if a bit more focus on the comedy would have made it more enjoyable.

So Thomas Jane of the mostly garbage movie I reviewed a few days ago plays Ray Drecker, a history teacher and sports coach in a poor Detroit school who decides to try to make some money off his huge penis after his house burns down and his kids move back in with his ex-wife. He starts a "happiness consultant" business with a woman he's bumped into a few times which basically consists of Ray being a prostitute for lonely women, and they sort of bumble through it for a while until the season ends. Ray has this odd, old fashioned personality that I came to enjoy quite a bit, and provides the human center of a comedy that sounds like it could be over the top but in truth seems very grounded. He wrestles with success versus loyalty, wonders about his son's sexuality, and just comes off well as a sympathetic figure. It's not a great show, but I like it.